Press TV-(Tue Sep 24, 2013) Iran’s former President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami says Israel has launched a smear campaign against President Hassan Rouhani because the Tel Aviv regime fears a potential removal of tensions between the Islamic Republic and the West.

“On the eve of Rouhani’s speech at the UN, Israel has again begun a campaign to discredit him because it fears the end of tension between Iran and the west,” Khatami wrote in an article published by the Guardian on Monday. “Those who are trapped by bitter experience make every effort to disrupt the progress of diplomacy once again. These people fail to realize a simple point about the relationship between domestic and foreign policy,” the former Iranian president further said.On September 22, Tel Aviv released a “preview” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech at the UN General Assembly, which is scheduled to be delivered next Tuesday, a week after President Rouhani and his American counterpart Barack Obama are to address the session. Earlier, President Rouhani, who is currently in New York, said he has full authority to negotiate a deal with the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program. According to a report by the New York Times on September 22, an Israeli official with knowledge of the content of Netanyahu’s UN speech said the Israeli premier intends to warn the world body that a diplomatic agreement with Iran to resolve the Western dispute over the country’s nuclear energy program “could be a trap.” The Israeli official also said that Netanyahu will set “conditions” for a potential agreement between the West and Iran. The United States, Israel and some of their allies falsely claim that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. Tehran strongly rejects the claim against its civilian atomic work, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.